Christian Tradition Quiz 1 Flashcards
Secularity is not anti-religion, but it is rather
2 conflicting stories
What does Late Modern Secularity emphasize?
Individual values
What does the Christian Tradition emphasize?
Sacrifice, loving others, serving others, not always getting our way
How is the secular age a haunted age?
There are vestiges of faith everywhere, people want the feeling of transcendence they just don’t want to believe in God
What is Smith’s goal?
To illuminate the modern secular age
Definition of secular1
Ancient understanding of secularity; deals with earthly things, not the divine (secular professions vs. sacred ones)
Definition of secular2
religiously neutral space with assumption that you can divide life and leave religion when entering some places (ex. public school)
Definition of secular3
Belief that God is 1 among many and whatever you want to believe is okay
Definition of enchanted world
people believed everything is charged with power; “things can do stuff”
Definition of disenchanted world
meaning comes from inside; “I do stuff”
How does greek cosmology play a part in our beliefs today?
It consists of the temporal and the eternal world; What is most true about the world is in the eternal because it is unchanging. (Plato’s forms)
Cogito ergo sum
I think, therefore I am
T/F Biblical writers believed we wouldd have an eternal soul
F; that has been influenced by Greek cosmology
Ancient view of reality
The Divided lIne; Immanentization collapses the eternal into the temporal
t/f without transcendence, reality collapses into radical sameness
T; and God becomes a condiment and we start making our own meaning
Keeping God as an idea bc we like him that way, but not in our lives is an example of
Deism
T/F secularity is the same as atheism
F; secularity isn’t committed to the philosophical reality of a metaphysical world
De-personalizing God
excarnation
personalizing God
incarnation
T/F Without transcendence, we have to create meaning for ourselves
T
2 ways to live in a secular age
Take
Spin
view of a world that takes itself seriously but can function in the presence of other systems
Take
Something that can function only in the totality of its own view of the world and disproves of others; fundamentalists
Spin
People with this view of the world demand that the world work only according to logic and see transcendence as a threat to their worldview
Closed Spin
T/F conversion to an open system is based on feeling, not argumentation
T
work of people; things we do regularly
Liturgy
When does peter gain his ID?
When he joins the liturgy of NL (insult war)
Joins after being encouraged by the community
When does Peter get to join the feast in NL?
When he joins the liturgy; you can’t just see the beauty of the CT until you practice it
What is B’s liturgy?
Discipleship
Cheap Grace v. Costly Grace
Cheap: being in it, but not seeing its true beauty
Costly: working hard and allowing the story to cost you something
B’s main line
“Only he who believes is obedient and he who is obedient believes
The way in which we approach the world
Technology; reality is shaped by devices and technology alleviates the claims made on your life
Statements about technology
- we become masters of the world
- we are programmed to think if something makes a claim on us its a problem and it can be fixed
- unlike technology, there its nothing quick, easy, or cheap in our faith (if there is, you’re doing it wrong)
Celebration and grace
You can’t celebrate deeply unless a costly claim is made on you. Cheap grace is fun, but it can’t be celebrated
Facts about Bonhoeffer
Lutheran pastor
4 degrees in theology (2 drs) before age 25
Studied theology in the US, went back to Germany
executed by nazis in plot to kill hitler
Cheap grace vs. costly grace chart
Cheap: grace we give ourselves forgiveness without repentance baptism without discipline communion without confession without discipleship without the cross without Jesus (costly is all with, grace bestowed by God; must be practiced)
**Smith wants the reader of How Not to be Secular to know…
the “feel” of the secular age
**the primary characteristic of a secular age
presence of competing narratives
**Smith describes the secular age as
cross-pressured
**Which secular definition is the one we are living in now?
Secular 3
**According to B, what is a characteristic of cheap grace
grace we bestow upon ourselves
**What is a characteristic of technology in the late modern era
It suggests we can be free by mastering our circumstances
** The subtle process by which our world and hence the real of significance is enclosed within the material universe and the natural world
Immanentization
**2 ways to engage a secular age
Take
Spin
*Liturgy
Service
**B: “When Christ calls a man…
“he bids him come and die”
**When we pursue cheap, quick, easy lives, we lose our ability to
celebrate
**When could Peter see the feast
When he joined the liturgy of NL
**Why was Maggie able to remember her home and recognize her dad when jack couldnt
She practiced the liturgy of home by singing songs her mom taught her
**Smith’s quote about the secular age
“I don’t believe in God, but I miss him”
**secular people
still want the feeling of transcendence
**What does a liturgy do
**Draws one into and roots one into a particular narrative
**Pervasive technology suggests to us that
we don’t have to be claimed by anything
